After months of willing it to happen, my boy finally overcame both gravity and friction. Now suddenly mobile, I find myself learning how to crawl all over again.
Carter has been itching to move under his own power for months. His legs have been doing the frog kick in surprisingly powerful thrusts since June (his mother would argue several months before that). Eighteen of his 20-22 pounds propelled him forward, but the remainder kept him grounded. Despite his best efforts over the summer and early fall, Carter remained firmly anchored by his gut.
That changed in late October with a visit from my Dad. So far, my father is laying claim to some great power guiding his development. Milestone after milestone, Grampy witnessed Carter’s greatest achievements. None was more impressive than the boy’s short scamper across our living room carpet.
I can close my eyes and imagine the victory. Almost by mistake, Carter holds back his bottom just a little more than usual and arches his back to keep his belly from rubbing the floor. An arm to pull, a leg to push. Then, in the same sequence once more. I’m sure there was delight in Carter’s bright eyes when he realized that he was closer to his mother than he was just a moment before. All around him, shrieks of joy on his behalf.
I must imagine this, because I was not actually there to see it. My friend Kenn and I went out to catch a flick at the movie theatre during a brief stop-over visit by my dad. While I was watching Sylvester Stallone outmuscle Mickey Rourke in “Get Carter,” my father and wife were watching the prelude to our first home movie by the same name.
There has been ample opportunity to watch him repeat the maneuver since then. He crawls for the pure joy of it now, moving just to move. All of those weeks of frustration melt into his subconscious with each whap-whap cycle of palms and knees hitting the carpet. Sometimes, however, he has purpose — the beagle; an open gate in the hallway; the remote control; a diet coke. It is during these moments of motivation I spring into action.
The last time I crawled with this much frequency I was wrestling for the Northwood Junior High Warhawks. Even then, the object was to avoid being on your hands and knees — and back — as much as possible. Prior to that, crawling was the optimal means of transport only when sneaking into someone else’s fort. Otherwise, the ability to move while upright pretty much took the bloom off the rose for crawling. Now, I find myself tailing Carter around from room to room, my eyes no more than a dozen inches from the carpet.
I follow Carter in this manner because, well, I’m afraid. Yes, I toss him up in the air to the delight of both of us. But this newfound mobility has drastically increased his little world beyond the child-safe environment Amy and I carved out for him. Our mistakes are more glaring when both hands and knees are firmly on the ground. There’s a whole universe of outlets and wires and choking hazards we had grown accustomed to overlooking as bipedal adults. Even the dogs, Snooks and Cleo, sense the intrusion. They guard their dog food and squeaky toys with at least one eye, even as they sleep.
If simple mobility were the only issue, I think I could easily adapt. But the danger lies in Carter’s expanding head. He is now putting one and one together to make two. Perhaps not mathematically, but the boy is starting to understand cause and effect and how to solve problems with the raw materials around him. Little MacGuyver opened my eyes wide to this very thing when he climbed up on a toy barn to have a better chance at pressing the buttons on the VCR. It won’t be long before he targets the cracker jar on the kitchen shelf with a catapult he’s assembled from leggos, weebles and the inner workings of a Tickle Me Elmo doll.
Until recently, Carter and I weren’t living in the same world. We’d share some space, but it was my space to share and my space to control. If I set him down in a corner surrounded by stuffed animals, he might manage to rock his way to the border several minutes later. Today, I play chess with my Diet Coke can, moving it from square to square searching for safe haven from Carter’s advances. He intrudes on my nightly rituals and makes brief the embrace of our couch.
It is only a matter of time until my father wends his way back south and entices Carter into his first steps. That unsteady walk will quickly become a confident run, challenging me to evolve in kind. It’s a strange feeling to know I’ve been down this road once before yet realize with every step that we advance into uncharted territory.
An arm to pull, a leg to push. The same sequence once more. Shrieks of joy all around.